1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system and program for diagnosing a computer in a network system and, in particular, gathering network and application performance data to use in diagnosing the computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many businesses that sell computer related services and products transact with customers over the Internet, i.e., World Wide Web, or Intranet. One problem with transacting business over the Internet is the delays customers experience to execute transactions to access information. Lengthy delays may frustrate customers and cause them to associate access delays and problems with the business with which they are transacting, even if the business is not at fault for the delays. Many computer related businesses provide technical support to help customers diagnose their computer problems. Providing support technicians to assist customers with computer problems can be a very expensive service because of the labor intensive nature of the technical support function. One of the major determining factors in the effectiveness of live technical support is the ability of the technician to adequately diagnose the problem in a timely manner. Diagnosing problems may depend to some extent on the customer, whose lack of knowledge may hinder the diagnostic process. Any factors that hinder and delay the ability of the technician to diagnoses the problem will increase the businesses technical support costs and further frustrate the customer.
When a technician speaks with a customer over the phone to diagnose the computer problem, the technician may request the customer to perform certain tasks on the computer to assist with the diagnosis. Involving the customer to perform the diagnosis could complicate and delay the diagnostic process if the customer has limited technical knowledge of the computer and needs significant time to perform the requested operations. When information is obtained verbally from a customer, the accuracy of the information is “only as good as” the technical knowledge of the end-user. Moreover, the customer may not perform the operations correctly or lack the technical knowledge to execute the operations requested by the technician. Still further on-line assistance where the customer self-diagnoses problems can also lead to frustration if the customers do not perform the self-diagnosis properly and fix the problem. All these factors can significantly lengthen the diagnostic process, increase the cost of the diagnostic process, increase the inaccuracy of diagnosis, and further erode customer confidence.
For these reasons, there is a need in the art to provide improved systems for diagnosing computer related problems when providing technical support.